


a kiss with a fist is better than none

by cardinal__sin



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Bickering, First Kiss, Flirting, Hand to Hand Combat, M/M, Martial Arts, Sexual Tension, Training, ajhsdfjksafg idk what to tag thiiiis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28055436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardinal__sin/pseuds/cardinal__sin
Summary: Tim is pretty new to this whole doppelgänger-slash-action hero thing. He doesn't even know how to fight properly. Jack sets out to change that.
Relationships: Handsome Jack/Timothy Lawrence
Kudos: 16





	a kiss with a fist is better than none

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah! this is jack teaching tim how to fight and of course it all ending with them making out on the tatami because i'm incorrigible.  
> title from kiss with a fist by florence + the machine
> 
> (obligatory disclaimer that i've been practicing martial arts for nine years now but english isn't my first language so if a term or phrase sounds a bit awkward or isn't right, that's because i didn't google the english equivalent hard enough. i think it's still pretty clear though)

**| Penthouse workout clothes.**

Tim stares at the short message on his ECHOcomm, trying to make sense of it. Jack doesn’t like wasting time on texting and keeps his messages as short and concise as possible, which usually makes them almost incomprehensible to someone not trained in the way Jack’s mind works. It’s a good thing Tim is paid half a fortune per month to do exactly that, train himself to behave like Jack and then… do it. So he throws the small device on his couch and goes to find something he could technically classify as workout clothes.

After the surgeries, after moving to Helios, Tim spent a good chunk of his first paycheck on a whole new wardrobe. Clothes that Jack signed off on, clothes that Jack required him to own, clothes he wanted to wear when he was at home. None of his old clothes fit him after the alterations, his shoulders too wide, his legs just a bit too short, his chest too toned, and, regrettably, his ass too flat. It took a hell of a lot of getting used to, but after a good month and a half of living on Helios and practicing everything with Jack, from his signature to the way he ordered coffee, he was starting to feel at home in his new body, his new life.

He finds a pair of black sweatpants and a dark grey tank top he deems acceptable, as well as his favourite running shoes. The one thing they did not have to change about him was shoe size and Tim is absolutely overjoyed by that fact, his favourite shoes too dear to him to throw out (he would have done so, reluctantly; he wasn’t going to be the weirdo who had a bunch of used shoes on display).

He doesn’t text Jack back, doesn’t need to: Jack knows Tim will come running immediately when he asks. It’s his job. Jack made plenty clear on his first day that failure to comply would result in… Something for sure. Jack had made a small motion in the direction of his own neck, which could have meant slitting Tim’s throat, strangling him, an electric shock collar or just buying him a nice scarf. It was a threat, though, and it was clear enough that Tim was not to cross any line Jack didn’t command him to.

Tim is fairly certain his momma wouldn’t be proud of his only son becoming someone’s loyal dog. But then again, his momma laughed when she received news of Tim’s passing, so it was anyone’s guess really. Tim’s only tie to humanity now is Jack. Jack knew him before the surgery, Jack hand picked him after a series of interviews and tests, and Jack approved of him. Jack also owns him now, now that he’s not legally Timothy Lawrence anymore, and that’s gotta count for something as well. It certainly does for Tim.

Jack is almost twice his age. It’s weird to say about a man in his mid-thirties, but Tim is barely more than twenty-one. He doesn’t think of Jack as a father figure at all, though. Looking like the man, having his face, his _genes_ , and some of his personality really made him feel more like a twin to Jack than a son.

Which is also a wrong thing to feel. Tim doesn’t want to think of Jack as his twin, as his father, as a lover, as anything but his boss, but he can’t help it, especially not the latter. Jack is… Jack is handsome, and imposing, and strong and actually pretty damn funny, and Tim is just young and very confused about everything, so it’s really no surprise he’s somewhat preoccupied by his fantasies about the older man. Having Jack’s face, Jack’s hand, Jack’s voice… it all comes together in an unfortunate mix that enables Tim to live out every last fantasy he comes up with late at night. Not that he’d ever admit that.

He arrives to the penthouse slightly out of breath, having run from the elevator to keep Jack waiting for as little time as possible. Jack is not what you would describe as a patient man. He gets jumpy and trigger-happy after ten minutes of idleness and he’s only entertained by one thing for about half an hour. He has an array of stress balls and small items to fidget with lining on his desk and Tim has seen him actually squeeze a stress ball until it tore in half during a ninety-minute long budget meeting. Though the reason for that might have been Jack’s boss, Mr Tassiter, who was hell-bent on chewing out Jack for _something_ , even though he did everything right for that specific meeting. Tim could sense the tension between the two men, and he had made a mental note back then to keep an eye on their professional relationship. If the light in Jack’s eyes was anything to go by, Tassiter was going to get about a head shorter in little time.

“Hi,” Tim says as he enters the penthouse, cringing from how his voice echoes in the open space. Jack is a fan of minimalism, it seems, or he just doesn’t care much about interior design. There’s a lot of glass and black wood involved, though, which seems nice. It doesn’t suit Jack though. His personality is thrifted coffee tables with stains on them and ten variously coloured and sized bean bags strewn around. His design choices do not reflect that at all.

“Took you long enough,” he hears Jack from the next room over, so he goes there. He tries not to mind the view to Elpis – if he thinks about it too much he needs to throw up. Space does not agree with him in the slightest.

The room Jack and his ego currently occupy is something like a personal gym, Tim supposes. He can see an elliptic, a couple weights and a few machines he could not name for the life of him. There’s also an about two inch thick, tough foam mattress spanning most of the floor space. Jack is there, wearing nothing but a pair of leggings, sitting in a center split position. He’s leaning over his left leg, chest flush to his thigh, holding onto his foot, fingers meeting on his sole. Tim gapes a little – he didn’t know Jack was so flexible! Or that he should be so flexible!

“Um, yeah, sorry,” he says, drops his bag right where he stands and gets to toeing off his shoes. Jack is barefoot, so he supposes he should get with the program as well.

“Sorry, why am I here exactly?”

“You’re gonna have to stop apologising for everything, kid,” Jack groans as he straightens up, hair falling over his slightly reddened face, “and you’re here to learn. I need you to know how to fight. Shooting is cool, but sometimes your fist is your best bet. Get on the tatami.”

“The what?” Tim asks back dumbly before his brain catches up. Right, yes, the mattress – thing. He steps up there hesitantly, getting used to the feeling of it – just slightly softer than the floor, but it still has a fraction of elasticity on it. Tim feels nervous.

“Ooookay,” Jack claps his hands and gathers his legs, standing up with a small wince. He rotates his waist a couple times, getting the stiffness out of his legs that the strain of stretching left him with. He stands in front of Tim with his hands on his hips and – oh, okay, that’s seriously a very nice chest – looks at Tim expectantly.

“C’mon, show me your fighting stance.”

Tim stares. Partly because he’s still very much flustered about Jack’s half-nakedness, and partly because he has no idea what Jack wants from him. Fighting stance, fighting stance… That’s what people do in the action movies, right? One leg forward, one leg back, hands raised in front of face? That it?

Jack laughs at him. So apparently not. Tim drops his hands and wills himself not to blush, when he already knows he’s sporting two perfect rosy cheeks. Embarrassment always gets him flustered quickly, he can’t blame himself.

“That’s all wrong,” Jack says once he had his fun, “you’re gonna be knocked on your ass in a second if you stand like that. Come on, I’ll show you.”

He stands opposite of Tim.

“Leftie or rightie?” he asks, and Tim awkwardly waves his left hand. Another thing to be glad about: he didn’t have to learn to use his less dominant hand to masquerade as Jack. Small mercy.

Jack nods, and then shifts his right leg back, his foot turned forty-five degrees outward, knee slightly bent. His left leg stays at the front, slightly bent but less so: his right supports more of his weight than the left.

“Like so,” Jack says, “mirror me, cupcake. Left leg back, right leg front. Your foot shifted outward like that and the bent knee help anchor you. You can sink into the stance instead of just falling backwards if you get hit from the front like that. Divide your weight between the two legs. Go for sixty-forty. More on the back. Very good.”

He watches Tim clumsily repeat his stance with an intent gaze, following each of Tim’s small shifts with keen eyes. When he’s satisfied, he asks Tim to stand up straight, then stand back into that same fighting stance. It takes more than ten minutes of practice, but after a while Tim instinctually snaps into the correct position when Jack claps his hand as a command.

“Good job,” Jack praises him, his voice honest and impressed.

“Now the hands.”

Tim spends another half an hour learning how to make a proper fist, how to hold up his arms in a fighting stance and how to protect his face. Jack trains his reflexes by lightly swatting toward his face and having Tim deflect, which works most times but by the time Jack gives him a water break his cheeks sting from the smacks that made it through his line of defence anyway.

“Now what?” he asks Jack, watching warily as the man slips two punch mitts onto his hands.

“Now you learn how to kick.”

The punch mitts are great targets because Jack can move his hands so that Tim hits them even if he misses, giving him a tiny sense of success. Tim discovers that his balancing requires a lot of work, and so does his flexibility. He barely raises his leg above waist height, but it already makes his thigh muscles strain and his balance falter.

“You can break ribs with this, if you get it strong enough,” Jack explains, demonstrating the high kick on a punching bag. His toes are pointed, his leg snapping out on a lightning-fast kick with his shin and the top of his foot. Tim watches the punching bag swing, feeling all the air leaving his lungs like he’s been kicked just like that.

“You can also do the same to the thigh or head,” Jack carries on, “but you gotta be quick with that one. I don’t recommend it unless you know what you’re doing.”

“Okay,” Tim nods. It’s not like he’ll ever be flexible enough to kick someone in the _head_.

They keep practicing. Jack is ruthless, barely lets Tim breathe as he calls for him to do it _again_ and _again_ and _again_ and _again_ , making him do fast side-switches, series of five or ten kicks at once, and sometimes kicks followed quickly after by punches. Tim feels like he’s burning alive, lungs aching as he pulls in shallow breath after shallow breath, his throat sore, his muscles threatening to give out once he stops moving for even a second.

Jack can see it on him, and after a series of ten kicks in rapid succession, he claps his mitt-clad hands together – making Tim flinch – and declares ten minutes of cooling off time. Tim collapses on the tatami with a grateful groan, staring up at the ceiling with his arms spread wide. He needs five minutes to catch his breath, eyes closed as he draws air in through his nose and exhales it slowly through his mouth. His chest eventually stops heaving and he opens his eyes –

Only to find Jack staring down at him with a wide grin.

“Gah!” Tim yelps, rather dignified if you ask him, and scrambles to sit up straight. Jack cackles meanly and gives Tim a hand to help him up.

“Don’t do that,” Tim frowns at him, and Jack only laughs more.

He’s wearing a white, threadbare tank now, so loose that he could just as well have stayed shirtless. Tim can still see _everything_. Which is just fine with him, thank you very much. He subtly admires the glistening of sweat on Jack’s muscles, the fine hairs on his chest, the scars and moles peppering the paler skin there. It’s vaguely similar to his own chest, but not _exactly_ , not millimetre to millimetre. And he would love to map out all the differences. Which is something he definitely should not be thinking about right now, so. He looks away with great difficulty and gestures awkwardly to the tatami.

“Do I learn how to Hulk smash now?”

Jack laughs at him, loud and brash and wonderful, and Tim grins back shyly.

“Good one,” Jack gasps, “but no. We’re gonna spar.”

“Spar?” Tim echoes, suddenly insecure about his progress in their little training.

“That’s what I said, no, cupcake?” Jack sounds a bit irritated, so Tim decides to just go with obeying and steps back onto the tatami.

“Wait,” he remembers, “shouldn’t we be wearing protective gear? Like a helmet or gloves?”

“Are you going to be wearing a little foam headguard on Pandora, dummy?” Jack asks back, “cause I don’t think you will. You need to learn how to spar with your bare hands. You’re not good enough to hurt me, and I’ll go easy on you. No bones broken, no lasting injury. ‘Kay?”

“’Kay,” Tim mutters, accepting his fate. Jack saying he’ll go easy on him means anything but.

“Fighting stance,” Jack commands, and with that, the sparring begins.

The first round, Jack has Tim flat on his back in about five seconds. Tim wheezes as Jack’s weight and the force of the impact force the air out of his lungs and lets his head thud against the tatami in defeat.

“Reflexes,” Jack reminds Tim, then stands and reaches a hand out. Tim takes it and lets Jack pull him upright, shaking his head to get rid of the dizziness.

Jack lets out a sharp whistle and they’re fighting again.

This time Tim blocks Jack’s first attack, a kick to the ribs, with his raised forearm, and he’s so surprised by his own success he forgets to take advantage of the window Jack left him. Jack recovers and punches him in the jaw the next second, and Tim only barely but manages to keep his footing this time.

The third round he kicks Jack in the jaw. It’s a complete accident; he was aiming for Jack’s ribs when Jack ducked to deliver a gut punch and it all came together spectacularly. Tim watches as Jack goes down, a heavy thud echoing out as his body hits the ground.

“Oh god, Jack, are you okay?” Tim cries out and rushes to his side.

Jack groans and reaches up with an unsure hand to rub at his jaw. He winces and shies away from his own touch but then he _grins_ and he looks _hungry_ but not in the traditional sense of the word and Tim wonders if Jack is more fucked up than he already knows.

“That was _wonderful,_ pumpkin,” Jack purrs, and wow, okay, he’s definitely into being kicked in the jaw. What the fuck. But also: Tim can’t complain. He’s definitely into Jack being into it.

He reaches out a hand to help Jack up like Jack did for him before and Jack takes it with a grin. The whole world turns around itself in a moment and the next thing Tim knows is that he’s looking up at the ceiling and his back _hurts_.

“Don’t help your opponent up or you can suck it,” Jack advises him, and stands up with a small wince. Tim sighs deeply. So much about being chivalrous then.

After that first hit, Tim’s luck seems to just keep on increasing. He gets Jack in the ribs a couple times, making him wince and sort of fold in on itself, but always straighten back up with a shark-like grin and an even more savage attitude. When Tim punches him in the nose, he wipes away the blood and smiles like he just won an all-expenses-paid trip to the most luxurious resort on Aquator.

“That was a good one, kid,” he praises, “been a while since someone managed to make me bleed.”

“You’re welcome,” Tim winks, feeling bold. He can see Jack’s eyes widen just a fraction before his grin grows sharper and colder and he attacks again.

At some point it stops feeling like practice or training, and just starts to fade into some intricate dance. Tim is dead on his feet but the praise and the fire in Jack’s eyes keep him going even as his lungs protest, even as his ribs ache. He wants Jack to admit defeat first, damn him.

Jack seems to be as tired as Tim feels, and that means he makes mistakes. He’s too slow on a punch and doesn’t manage to pull his arm back fast enough. That’s all Tim needs to grab him, one leg swiping his from underneath him, acting almost on instinct. As Jack goes down, Tim forgets to let go and is dragged down by Jack’s weight, landing right on top of him.

His breath catches in his throat. They’re chest to chest now, sweaty and out of breath, panting in the small space between their mouths. Tim watches Jack – the trickle of blood smeared under his nose, the dark bruise forming on his jaw, the mismatched eyes flitting around, searching Tim’s face the same way he’s searching Jack’s.

It feels like time stopped for a moment. Tim is all too aware of his body – his left hand holding on to Jack’s arm still, his chest against Jack’s, their legs tangled. He wonders if he should get up, apologise and get back into the fighting stance so they can keep going.

He doesn’t get to do that, though. Jack yanks one of his arms free from under Tim’s weight pushing him down, fists his hand into Tim’s hair and pulls on it meanly, pulls his head down until he can crush their lips together.

Tim moans in surprise and Jack immediately pushes his tongue past Tim’s lips. Tim can taste blood in the kiss, probably Jack’s but it could be his if the way Jack bites his lips is anything to go by. He huffs out a breath through his nose and kisses back intently, the arm not holding on to Jack coming up to cup his face. Jack hisses when Tim’s fingers brush against his bruise so Tim does it again, this time pressing his fingers into the swollen flesh there. Jack moans darkly in the back of his throat and bites Tim again, fingers tightening in his hair.

Tim doesn’t know how long they stay like that, seconds, minutes, maybe longer, but he’s gasping for air when they finally break apart, panting harshly. Jack is doing the same, eyelids at half-mast as he grins slowly. He has freakishly long eyelashes, the bastard. How dare he be pretty.

“Well,” Jack drawls, voice gravelly, “that was certainly something.”

“Yep,” Tim agrees awkwardly. He bites his lip hesitantly, not sure what to do now. Jack’s eyes flick down to follow the movement, and he smirks up at Tim when he blushes.

So naturally Tim kisses him again to wipe that smirk off his face. Fucking asshole. But kissing him is _amazing_ and he never wants to leave, not when he can taste Jack’s blood and hear him moan from Tim pushing against his bruises and –

“Ow, fuck!” Tim curses loudly. He’s lying on his back again, Jack having flipped them over with the grip in Tim’s hair, leaving the back of Tim’s head tingling from the pain. Jack is straddling him, both hands on his shoulders now, and grins down at Tim like the asshole he is.

“You need to learn to take advantage of your opponent’s weak moments,” Jack explains, like he’s a kindergarten teacher unravelling the mystery that is 2+2 = 4.

“Asshole,” he grumbles, but it’s really not like he wants to go anywhere. In fact, he is just fine and dandy with Jack pinning him down.

“Sorry, what was that?” Jack asks, “you admitting defeat?”

Tim glares.

“Sure,” he says finally, “you won. Happy now?”

“Over the frickin’ moon, baby,” Jack coos, and leans down to kiss Tim again. He’s a mean fucking kisser, Tim notes.

How fucked up do you have to be to be a masochist and a sadist at the same time anyway?

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! comments and kudos are always welcome, and if you feel like it, hit me up on social media or check out my other works: [ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardinal__sin) | [tumblr](https://cardinalxsin.tumblr.com/) | [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/cardinalxsin/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/cardinalxsin)


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